[This is Major Jose‘s first-person narrative of the first-time he faced the after-effects of monstrous bestiality that was far more evil , violent and inexplicable, of the kind that he had never even faced in any battle-field. The one who bore the full force of the after-effects and the trauma was in her final year of High-school, and was pregnant with her mother’s associate’s child. Kindred souls had left her at the Care Organisation that he has been fanatically supporting through the years. ]

The violence of the screeching vehicle entering the soft mud in the front porch brought the journey to an end, stirring up dust. Through the dancing patterns made by the swirling dust cloud against the seeping morning rays we entered the reception and waited as the suspended dust began to settle. A pleasant lady who came in introduced herself as a volunteer worker and said she was under instruction to conduct us around the orphanage.

My scanning eyes studied the long mess hall and the layout of study room that followed, as we went around reaching for the main door to the new complex. “First floorila” (on the first floor, please ). The volunteer lady ushered us.We climbed the stairs.

The door dragged open into a long hall with a reverberation which got dampened into the prevailing silence of the stillness inside. But the tremble deep within intensified as the faces kept getting revealed as the door opened.Â There among the bunch so mature, the presence of an innocence so stark sporting a tightly woven pair of pigtail braids knotted at the ends with shiny red ribbons shook me.

This recount of an episode of extreme violence from a bundle of innocence was way more than I could fathom. I disengaged quietly, rushed for the door with my eyes tightly closed, ran my fingers through the cold cemented walls to keep steadiness till I reach the porch as the world around me was in an unsettling spin and sank into the rear seat of the vehicle.

The violence of the screeching vehicle leaving the porch of the Mother and Child India Foundation kicked up dust into thin air. And this time, in the dancing patterns made by the dust cloud, against the seeping morning rays, did I see, a tightly woven pair of pigtail braids knotted at the end with shiny red ribbons stooping down shamed and dejected? Or could I see the seeping rays of hope ?

I believe it is in us to be those trusted Bridges Over Troubled Waters. All we need is to reach inside, and act.